The Amazing and Remarkable Properties of Water

Water is the most precious natural resource that we have on this planet. It is an essential element that plays a major role in every aspect of our daily lives. For example, water is used for drinking, bathing, cooking, recreating, cleaning, manufacturing, and energy production (just to name a few). Without water, life as we know it would cease to exist. But just what is it about water that makes it so versatile, useful, essential, and unique?

Amount of Water on Earth

About 0.001% of all water on earth resides in the atmosphere as a vapor, about 1.762% of it exists frozen as glaciers and permanent snow, and about 98.237% of it is in liquid form. Water also finds its way into nearly every corner of the globe as well. It is stored in our rivers, lakes, and oceans as well as underneath our feet as groundwater. There is also water in every biological organism alive today, the food we eat, and the air that we breathe. The table below summarizes the locations and volumes of all of the water on earth:

Water source

Water volume, in cubic miles

Water volume, in cubic kilometers

Percent of Freshwater

Percentage of Total Water

Oceans, Seas, & Bays

321,000,000

1,338,000,000

---

96.5

Ice caps, Glaciers, & Permanent Snow

5,773,000

24,064,000

68.6

1.74

Ground water

5,614,000

23,400,000

---

1.7

Fresh

2,526,000

10,530,000

30.1

0.76

Saline

3,088,000

12,870,000

---

0.93

Soil Moisture

3,959

16,500

0.05

0.001

Ground Ice & Permafrost

71,970

300,000

0.86

0.022

Lakes

42,320

176,400

---

0.013

Fresh

21,830

91,000

0.26

0.007

Saline

20,490

85,400

---

0.007

Atmosphere

3,095

12,900

0.04

0.001

Swamp Water

2,752

11,470

0.03

0.0008

Rivers

509

2,120

0.006

0.0002

Biological Water

269

1,120

0.003

0.0001

Source: Igor Shiklomanov's chapter "World fresh water resources" in Peter H. Gleick (editor), 1993, Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World's Fresh Water Resources (Oxford University Press, New York). http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html

The Current State of Water

Water is one of those rare substances that exists in all three physical states at once on Earth. Water's high heat of vaporization (because of the hydrogen bonding between molecules) makes it very resistant to changing states, especially evaporation. This property also helps to ensure that water is in a liquid state at Earth's most common temperatures. It is also interesting to note that many other substances that have similar molecular masses and/or molecular structures, such as carbon monoxide and methane, are gasses are room temperature.

Source

Water is a Polar Molecule

Due to the composition of water, it is a polar molecule whose structure is shaped like a tetrahedron. The polarity of water is caused by the uneven distribution of the cloud of electrons that are covalently shared between the oxygen and hydrogen atoms. The most electron dense area of the molecule is near the where the oxygen atom resides. The result of this asymmetric electron cloud is that that molecule is bent at about 104.45°. This causes one side of it to have a slightly positive charge while the other side to have a slightly negative.

Water's polarity is the key that allows intermolecular hydrogen bonding to occur. Because of this chemical property, the molecules are attracted to each other and form a hydrogen bond when in close proximity. The relatively weak hydrogen bonds give water nearly all of the unique and amazing properties that it has.

Water is The Universal Solvent

Water can dissolve more substances in it than any other material known to man. Being polar gives water its ability to dissolve many things easily. This is extremely important because many of the minerals that our bodies need to survive are found naturally dissolved in water. Water is the most important medium by which minerals such as calcium and magnesium can enter the body. If water wasn't polar, it could not dissolve other substances and it would not be able to sustain life on earth as we know.

Pure water also has a pH of 7. This means that the amount of hydrogen (H+) and hydroxyl (OH-) ions are exactly balanced. This makes pure water ideal for neutralized many strong acids (pH < 7) and bases (pH > 7). Having a neutral (or nearly neutral in most cases) pH also contributes to the ability of water to dissolve other substances.

Source

Water Expands When it Freezes

What would the world be like if water didn't expand when it freezes? Well, I highly doubt that the world would even exist at all. Water is somewhat unique as it is one of the very few materials that increases in volume as it freezes. By expanding in volume by up to 9%, the density of water in it solid state is lower than it is in its liquid state. This gives ice the ability to float. This simple fact alone has significant implications.

The fact that ice is less dense than liquid water means that when the top of a lake freezes, it can actually insulate the rest of the water from freezing. This ice shield allows for life, and many chemical reactions, to continue to occur throughout the winter season.

Cohesion & Adhesion

Another amazing property of water is it's high surface tension. In fact, water's cohesion is the strongest among all of the known non-metallic liquids. Surface tension, or the inherent attraction between individual molecules of water due to hydrogen bonding, is a key property in allowing life to exist on our planet. Aside from allowing some insects to walk on water, water's natural property of cohesion allows it to defy gravity. How? Well, the surface tension is just strong enough to allow water to "pull" itself up through narrow tubes or even void spaces in soil.

It is this property that allows capillary action to occur in our groundwater. Since the void spaces in certain soils are so close together, water can naturally rise higher than the official water table in some fine grained soils. Capillary action is also the main way that plants "drink" water. Transpiration of water in plants can only occur when water is soaked up through the tiny tubes that exist in the plant's stem or trunk.

Water Has a Very High Specific Heat

Did you know that water has a strong ability to resist changes in temperatures? Water has the remarkable ability to absorb or release relatively large amounts heat energy without actually changing temperature very much. The specific heat of water is 4.186 joule/gram C° which is much higher than many of the other substances that we use everyday. This makes it the ideal substance to cool power plants, maintain homeostasis within our bodies, and protect the Earth from wild daily and seasonal temperature changes.

Physical Properties of Water at Atmospheric Pressure (US Units)

Temperature

Density

Specific Weight

Dynamic Viscosity

Kinematic Viscosity

Vapor Pressure

Vapor Pressure

°F

slugs/ft^3

lbf/ft^3

lbf-s/ft^2

ft^2/s

psia

mmHG

40

1.94

62.43

3.23E-05

1.66E-05

0.122

6.309

50

1.94

62.40

2.73E-05

1.41E-05

0.178

9.205

60

1.94

62.37

2.36E-05

1.22E-05

0.256

13.239

70

1.94

62.30

2.05E-05

1.06E-05

0.363

18.773

80

1.93

62.22

1.80E-05

9.30E-06

0.506

26.168

100

1.93

62.00

1.42E-05

7.39E-06

0.949

49.077

120

1.92

61.72

1.17E-05

6.09E-06

1.69

87.398

140

1.91

61.38

9.81E-06

5.14E-06

2.89

149.456

160

1.90

61.00

8.38E-06

4.42E-06

4.74

245.129

180

1.88

60.58

7.26E-06

3.85E-06

7.51

388.379

200

1.87

60.12

6.37E-06

3.41E-06

11.53

596.273

212

1.86

59.83

5.93E-06

3.19E-06

14.70

760.209

Final Thoughts

It is truly amazing to think about how water has so many unique and amazing properties. Just thinking about the fact that life can even exist here on earth because of its properties is mind boggling. If just one of the key characteristics of this elixir disappeared, life as we know it would cease to exist. Water is indeed the most important substance that exists in our world.

Questions & Answers

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sending

Menzeleli Mamane

16 months ago

how do we then calculate the vapor

pressure in a closed system?

G Ivanova

3 years ago

This has got to be one of the coolest hubs. So informative and useful I love it!

Koustubh

5 years ago

Great information

Dale Anderson

6 years agofrom The High Seas

Voted up. Really interesting stuff.

AUTHOR

CWanamaker

7 years agofrom Arizona

Stephanie Henkel - I'm glad that you enjoyed my hub. Water really is very strange and unique. Thanks for reading!

AUTHOR

CWanamaker

7 years agofrom Arizona

Pcunix - That was a pretty interesting article. Thanks for sharing!

Stephanie Henkel

7 years agofrom USA

While water is everywhere, we seldom think much about it. I really enjoyed your article and learned some interesting facts about the importance of water and ice. Thanks for explaining so well the science behind some of water's properties.

Tony Lawrence

7 years agofrom SE MA

I read a very interesting article recently at ScienceDaily titled "Weird World of Water Gets a Little Weirder".

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